It is well known that being able to rekey a lock cylinder without disassembly saves a significant amount of time. It also eliminates having to carry around a large collection of parts. However, conventional rekeyable lock systems that accomplish this objective exhibit disadvantages of their own. One such system requires key followers having a plurality of gear teeth for engagement with respective toothed racks mounted in a carrier. During the rekeying process, a first valid key is inserted into the keyway and rotated. The user then manually pushes the carrier parallel to the longitudinal axis of the lock cylinder until the racks are disengaged from the key followers. The first valid key is removed and a second valid key is inserted and rotated to allow the carrier to be biased back to its starting position, thereby re-engaging the rack teeth at new positions with the teeth on respective key followers. This lateral re-engagement of rack teeth with key follower teeth could result in a rekeying process that isn't as smooth as desired. Also, this known rekeyable system uses a lot of parts, namely the plurality of toothed racks, the rack carrier and the rack return spring, plus a spring catch and a spring-biased detent ball, among others.
Additional features and advantages of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon consideration of the following detailed description of the illustrated embodiment exemplifying the best mode of carrying out the invention as presently perceived. It is intended that all such additional features and advantages be included within this description and be within the scope of the invention.